TBW - Omar Shakeeb and Oleg Ivanov (SecondLane): "All pre-IPO crypto companies are revalued upwards"

The Big Whale: What is your assessment of the first half of 2025 on the OTC market?

Omar Shakeeb: It's very simple: we have seen a massive acceleration in volume and a metamorphosis in pricing logic. If we compare the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, we see an increase of more than 200% in secondary activity. This is unprecedented.

This explosion has not been achieved under just any conditions. While the average discount deepened slightly to -46 %, compared to -43 % in H1 2024, on certain assets such as Solana or Sui they are around -20 %, sometimes even -15 %. This reflects a profound change in the composition of demand. New buyer profiles have arrived, with shorter time horizons and more structured strategies.

Oleg Ivanov: What's fascinating is how granular the market is becoming. There is no longer just one type of OTC deal. We've seen the emergence of a whole category of short-term buyers, who weren't around even a year ago. Their approach is based on systematic hedging: they buy tokens at a discount, close to their unlocking date, and use derivatives to set a predictable return. This is the birth of a form of "fixed product" crypto.

Have these new profiles upset the balance of the market?

Omar Shakeeb: Completely. Before, the secondary markets were dominated by long-term investors, VCs or family offices who bought with a 3 to 5 year horizon. Today, around half the market is made up of short-term buyers. They are aiming for yields over 3 to 6 months, sometimes less.

This dynamic has a direct effect on price levels. Short-term buyers accept much lower discounts, as they compensate by hedging. This is how Solana, which was trading at -40% in 2024, is now trading between -15% and -20%, even for tokens still subject to vesting until 2028.

And this strategy is only possible because the infrastructure has developed: DYDX, Aevo, Hyperliquid, options on Deribit... The derivatives market has reached a critical mass that makes it possible to support this type of execution.

Oleg Ivanov: But we need to temper this: for the moment, the depth of these operations remains limited. On assets like Solana, even playing futures with volume, you can't hedge more than $20m on a position without impacting the price. It is therefore a viable strategy for intermediate tickets, but not yet for very large cash positions.

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What impact does this dynamic have on asset valuations?

Omar Shakeeb: It mechanically compresses discounts. For an asset like Solana, with a high volume and a liquid derivatives market, buyers no longer need a -40% discount to take on the risk of a lock-up. -15% is enough. And even at this level, the annualised return remains attractive if the hedge is well structured.

But beware: the depth of these strategies remains limited. Even on liquid assets like Solana, it is difficult to hedge beyond $20m in open interest on derivatives without impacting the price. This limits the sizes, but the appetite is there.

Which projects are attracting the most investors today?

Omar Shakeeb: What is attracting today are clearly the projects that tick three boxes: high appreciation potential, the beginnings of demonstrated traction and a credible technical or regulatory architecture. In practical terms, this covers four main categories: infrastructure protocols (L1 and L2), restaking-related projects, RWA platforms and certain mature DeFi players.

Let's take Sui, for example. In the space of two years, they have reached a capitalisation of almost 30 billion dollars, which completely redefines valuation scales on private markets. When a new project comes to seed with technology comparable to Sui, a solid team and a seed valuation of $10 million, the trade-off becomes obvious: even a fraction of the distance covered by Sui would offer a very attractive multiple. Investors are increasingly adopting this approach: can this project be worth 5, 10 or 30 billion over time? And if so, at what price can I buy in today?

Oleg Ivanov: There is also a form of accepted "rinse and repeat" on the part of funds. Many reinvest the capital gains generated on a LayerZero or an EigenLayer in new similar bets. This is a dynamic recycling of capital. Big funds like a16z know they won't make 100x on a $100 million ticket, but they can aim for a realistic 3x on an infrastructure player that is already credible. This is more prudent, but also more institutional.

To sum up, the projects that attract are those that combine an upside logic with a clear understanding of go-to-market. And increasingly, this logic involves revenue generation. We are no longer just betting on hypothetical adoption, but on measurable flows from the first few months.

The scale of Circle's successful IPO took the market by surprise. What impact has it had on OTC deals today?

Omar Shakeeb: Circle's IPO acted as a real catalyst. Before the IPO, we were trading Circle shares at around $20 to $30 on the secondary market. Since its IPO, the stock has exploded, reaching $180 to $190, with a peak of $240. It's a game changer.

What this deal has changed is the perception of pre-IPO crypto equity. Until then, investors were skittish. Now, many see these pre-IPO shares as an opportunity for early access to realistic valuations and future liquidity. It's a reference, a benchmark. The investment banks themselves now use Circle as a benchmark for their roadshows.

Oleg Ivanov: We can already see this on Kraken. The reference price - the Right of First Refusal (ROFR) - is set at $24. Below that, nothing happens. A fortnight ago, buyers were prepared to pay between 24 and 30 dollars. But the sellers have all raised their prices to 40 dollars. Why have they done this? Because they are anticipating a successful IPO, like Circle. And this mechanism now applies to the whole sphere: Galaxy, Gemini, Anchorage... All the pre-IPO crypto boxes are being revalued upwards.

Is this prompting you to rebalance your business between tokens and equity?

Omar Shakeeb: Clearly. Historically, 90-95% of our business was tokens. Today, it's around 60% tokens and 35-40% equity. This is a major trend. Investors understand equity business models better, especially when they are backed by cash flow generators.

Actually, what types of project attract the most capital today?

Oleg Ivanov: Projects that generate income, without any ambiguity. Investors are tired of business models based on the promise of growth or the acquisition of users. They want cash flow and tangible indicators. This explains the rise of projects such as Hyperliquid, Euler and Morpho, as well as RWA platforms such as Maple and Ondo. All these projects provide direct monetisation.

Even among VCs, the questions have changed: you are no longer asked just how many active wallets you have, but how you are going to generate revenue, and with what margin.

Omar Shakeeb: And this same logic is echoed among secondary investors. Many of our clients, even those managing venture funds, are now looking to diversify their portfolios towards liquid, immediately profitable strategies. This is why short-term opportunities, such as hedged discount deals, or tokenisation of real revenues (hashrate, data centres, B2B or B2C loans) are booming.

Is this leading you to create new products?

Oleg Ivanov: Yes, our aim is to industrialise these strategies. Until now, a lot of secondary deals were done on a one-to-one basis. We want to offer ticket fragmentation, via tokenisation or more accessible SPV structures. The idea is to make secondary tickets accessible from as little as $10,000, compared with $1 million today.

To do this, we need a solid regulatory infrastructure. That's why we are in the process of extending our current licences to include MiCA-compliant permissions across the EU. Our aim is to be able to offer compliant products, on the borderline between CeFi and DeFi.

Omar Shakeeb: This is what we are already doing with our partnership with Legion. We've seen that the demand is there, on both sides: traditional investors want access to emerging crypto assets, and crypto natives want to diversify into structured assets. The bridge between the two worlds is compliance. And in this respect, regulation plays a leverage role, not a hindrance.

As privileged observers, what is your vision of the market for the coming months?

Omar Shakeeb: We see three major trends. The first is the continued compression of discounts on quality assets. On the top protocols, we've gone from -50% to -20%, and we're probably going to stabilise at around -15% on the best signatures.

The second is the rise in pre-IPO equity rounds, particularly on infrastructure companies or regulated exchanges. This is an ideal playing field for family offices and institutional long-only strategies.

Finally, the third is the increasingly clear opening up of the secondary market to retail. Provided we structure the right products that are compliant and accessible. That's where we're heading.

Oleg Ivanov: And we could add a fourth: equity/token convergence. The day you can transfer your shares natively on the blockchain, without going through Carta or a broker, everything will change. That moment is coming. And it will change the way we think about liquidity in the non-listed sector.

Have Crypto Treasury Companies had an impact on OTC deals?

Omar Shakeeb: Yes, their impact is major and still underestimated. These listed or soon-to-be-listed companies, which are incorporating digital assets into their balance sheets, are reshaping the secondary market in their own way. They are not simply buying tokens: they are incorporating them into balance sheet structures, creating synthetic products or back-to-back instruments, and using them as leverage for valuation. Take Solana, for example: a company can buy SOL on the OTC market, transfer it to a controlled entity, include it in its NAV (Net Asset Value), then tokenise part of this value to finance its growth or boost its equity valuation. As a result, sellers do not even need to transfer full ownership of their tokens. They can 'contribute' them to an organisation and receive shares in return. It's a hybrid between tokenisation, convertible debt and treasury equity.

Oleg Ivanov: And we shouldn't overlook the reputational effect. When a VC fund discreetly holds $100m of SOL, it causes concern. When a listed company does it, under the supervision of the SEC and with a quarterly audit, it is perceived as legitimate, credible and transparent. This change in perception has a profound effect: institutional buyers prefer audited and regulated counterparties.

Finally, these companies often have a long strategy: they accumulate over several quarters, participate in the most competitive OTC deals, and lock up supply. This behaviour has contributed to the scarcity of quality tokens on the secondary market. In the medium term, this is pushing sellers to increase their prices or structure their exits differently.

Your prediction for the next 12 months?

Omar Shakeeb: We think that the "post-IPO" narrative will dominate the next 12 months. After Circle, others will follow. And this will create a new geography for secondary, where equity and tokens intersect, complement each other and sometimes merge. The secondary market is becoming a global, structuring market, with its own valuation logic. And this is just the beginning.

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